


When the Train Comes I Will Hold You

by verger_de_pommiers



Series: One Summer in Brooklyn [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky down at the docks...doing dock things, Bucky swears a lot, Domestic Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, steve and bucky's tiny apartment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 05:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18933955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verger_de_pommiers/pseuds/verger_de_pommiers
Summary: Bucky's been acting strange





	When the Train Comes I Will Hold You

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for inaccurate street names. Brooklyn? Who is she?

Bucky woke up when the sun crept underneath the curtain and hit his eyelids. He turned his head, finding Steve sleeping in a lump of blankets on the other side of the room. He was snoring softly. Bucky reached down, finding a sock, and threw it at Steve’s head. 

‘Uh,’ Steve grumbled, blindly peeling the sock off of his face and chucking it at Bucky, missing.

‘Breakfast,’ Bucky said sleepily.

‘What am I, your valet?’

‘You burn the eggs less than me.’

Steve gave him a look and Bucky sighed, sitting up and placing his feet on the cold wooden floor. He stood and squeezed between Steve’s bed and the wall, heading for the kitchen. He rummaged through the cupboard, finding a pan, and lit the stove. Snorting as he imagined Steve being some poor sucker’s valet he cracked two eggs into the pan and waited for them to sizzle. He could hear Steve getting dressed. The walls were thin in their building; he could hear Mr and Mrs Adleman fighting, Mr and Mrs Lissent next door doing the opposite, and the strange woman below winding her clocks backwards and forwards. 

‘And some bread too!’ Steve called. 

‘Yes your majesty.’

Bucky ripped off two chunks of bread. 

‘Remember,’ he said when Steve entered, ‘pictures tonight.’

Steve yawned and sat down.

‘What’s it?’ he said as Bucky put the plate of food in front of him and sat opposite.

‘Dodsworth.’

‘That’s tomorrow,’ Steve said, mouth full of food. Bucky wrinkled his brow. ‘And didn’t that show already?’

‘Mm ’36, guess Wilson’s runnin’ out of reels.’ Wilson’s was the theatre nearest to their block; a run down soggy wreck of a building, most definitely haunted, and soon to be bought off, to Steve and Bucky’s horror.

Bucky shrugged on his jacket and popped a chunk of bread in his pocket.

‘Wait,’ Steve said, reaching over to open the cupboard under the sink. He passed a brown package to Bucky who opened it up and grinned manically.

‘Apricot tart,’ he whispered. Steve rolled his eyes, smiling.

\----

Montague Lane was sizzling in the midday sun and Steve had his face turned up to the clouds, idly tapping his paintbrush against his knee. He was sat outside Kirby’s on a wooden box, a half painted sign leaning up against the shop window. After washing all the apples and tipping the oranges into a summertime display Mr Kirby had handed him the signs that needed redoing and had laid out some newspaper for him outside, the shop too soggy with heat for the paint to set evenly. Steve sat breathing deeply for a while, the morning’s work taking its toll; though, he tried to ignore, it would be nothing compared to Bucky’s day. Steve opened his eyes, arm stretching towards the paint pot, when, as if summoned, Bucky appeared. He was heading up Auckland Hill, turning onto Montague Lane on the side opposite Steve. He looked very strange. His eyes were on the floor and he was walking as if blind, slowly and rigidly tipping from side to side and occasionally scuffing his feet. Twice he walked into a passer-by and did not even stop to apologise, as if he had not noticed at all. Steve was about to call out his name when Bucky stopped suddenly and turned on his feet, going back the way he came and then heading for the fork in the road, taking Charlotte Street. Steve almost fell off his perch when an oncoming bus came over Auckland Hill and Bucky did not look up, eyes still stuck on the ground as he crossed the road. He then disappeared out of sight having turned into a side road as a group of schoolgirls dressed all in black spilled out of a flower shop. Steve was standing now, speechless and sweating a little. With a furrowed brow he sat back down and stared at the unfinished sign. 

\----

Bucky stood on the pier, watching the sea turn a glittering black. He could not get the picture out of his head; the blood, crushed body, twisted limbs sticking out from under the hunk of steel. _I watched someone die today_. 

The man, Ben O’Shaughnessy, had not been working there long. Bucky had hardly spoken to him. Had not called him by his first name. Had not known anything about him except that he was twenty-seven years old and had a girl named Lil, because he had started working with them the day of his birthday and because Lil had visited that day during their lunch hour with a large sponge cake wrapped in a kitchen towel. 

Bucky held the railing tightly, shaking. In his mind Mr Alladyce was knocking on Lil’s front door, telling her the news. Would she cry on the doorstep? Or would she wait till Mr Alladyce was gone? Her face was pale white, as white as bone, crumbling before him.  
The blood again, unbidden. The blood rushing over the floor towards Bucky’s feet. Bucky tipped further over the railing and watched the stars in the sea, up and down, up and down. He breathed out in one slow breath and turned away, back pressing against the railing for a moment before he pushed off, heading for the city. 

\----

Steve lay on his bed, covers pooling at his feet. The sun had set a beastly lethargic heat into the city, swamping the hustle and bustle so that it was almost silent, Brooklyn inhabitants camped out on their balconies or sleeping in the park. His stomach rumbled as he turned onto his side, wishing for sleep to come. He opened his eyes and found Bucky’s empty bed in the dark. He closed them again and listened to the sound of people moving in the flat next door, playing music. It sounded like they were dancing. 

The front door unlocked and he turned onto his back. Bucky came in, back slumped and tired eyes roving over the sheets, not bothering to turn on the light. He kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, then undid the waistband of his trousers and pushed them to the floor. Instead of heading for his bed by the window, he turned and sat beside Steve, breathing deeply for a moment. Then he got up and slumped down on his own bed, turning to face the wall. Steve stared at his hunched shoulders.

‘Buck?’

There was no reply and Steve reached his arm out into the empty darkness. 

\----

Bucky sat in his seat at the theatre, eyes roving over the stained walls and chair backs and up into the fading decoration that surrounded the screen, trying to memorise all of it before it became something else. Steve was fidgeting beside him. The newsreel was blaring out and Steve’s skin was aglow with grey light. He’d been trying to guess all night, what had Bucky’s face so dark and dim, until Bucky had snapped at him and he’d gone silent, eyebrows drawn down and sad. Bucky stewed in his own guilt and begged the movie to begin so that he may disappear for a short while and forget that he was Bucky. He should have asked someone about Dodsworth, that much became clear twenty minutes into it. The film was relentless; a broken marriage, a broken heart, a waste of years on the wrong person. He sank lower into his chair and felt himself boil over into a frothing, feverish, cloud of misery. He felt scorched and Steve’s fidgety little body next to him was doing him no favours.

‘This fuckin bitch, fuckin idiotic waste of space, what’s she doin with her life.’

‘Hey!’ A woman behind him shouted, ‘Oh! You need to wash your mouth out, talking about a lady like that.’

‘That ain’t no lady,’ he turned around, sneering.

‘S’yer head cracked, what’s gotten into you?’ That was Steve, followed by a chorus of shooshes. 

‘Khaki-wacky call-girl is what she is.’ 

‘Oof,’ she said, getting up, ‘You’ll be thrown out, I’m getting Mr Wilson.’

‘Fine by me, he’s gonna show shit like this I wanna give him a piece o’ my mind,’ he said, stretching his arms out and kicking his feet up. He had no idea what he was doing.

‘Buck,’ Steve pushed at his shoulder, ‘we didn’t pay for the tickets, remember,’ he whispered through his teeth.

‘Well then I guess we’re goin’ to the can, and that’s our lives now.’ Before he could finish his sentence Steve had pushed him so hard that he landed on the floor, head hitting the back of the chair in front. 

‘Outta the way!’ came a yell.

‘Ouch, Steve.’

‘Come on fathead, let’s get outta here.’

 

Outside, the moon was shining down upon them. Bucky was already disappearing behind a cloud of steam rushing through a vent in the ground and Steve ran to catch up with him. He was walking with his face in his hands and Steve had to tug on him every once in a while to avoid a collision. Once they were inside and Steve had locked the door, he finally spoke.

‘What the heck was that about.’

‘I,’ Bucky put his hands in his hair, ‘Aw hell, I don’t know.’

‘You been acting weird all day,’ he pointed a finger at him, then dropped it.

‘You didn’t,’ he continued, ‘…is that girl you been seeing…expecting?’

Bucky dropped his hands.

‘What? What girl?’

‘Shona Ca- oh nevermind.’

Bucky suddenly fixed him with a look, his dark eyes roving over him. He took a step closer to him, then stopped. Steve looked about him.

‘What?’

‘Nothin,’

‘Gosh you sure are a pain in my neck.’

Bucky turned away and went into their room. Steve stood, red-faced, for a moment before following. Bucky was already crying by the time Steve had gotten the door to shut; it liked to stick and had to be jiggled for the locks to line up. Steve sat beside him and laid a hand on his shivering back.

‘I saw..I saw…Oh Steve,’ he said in a small voice, sniffing and wiping at his soggy nose.

‘Yesterday? I saw you. What happened?’

‘A guy. H-he was crushed. I saw him. A piece of….it fell on him.’ He looked up and Steve moved his arm. 

‘Buck, that’s- I’m sorry.’ Bucky nodded and knotted his fingers back into his hair.

‘What do you suppose his girl is thinking right now? I can’t stop imagining her all alone.’

Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed.

‘And what if they never…he was probably gonna marry her. And…and-’

‘Buck, lie down, I’ll make some tea.’

He had to turn away, just for a moment, from watching the tears fall onto Bucky’s trousers. When he returned with a steaming cup in his hand and a burn on his thumb, Bucky hadn’t moved. Steve sat the cup down onto the window ledge and gently pushed Bucky onto his back, tugging the quilt from his bed and throwing it over him whilst propping his head up with all the pillows he could find. Bucky’s skin looked grey and his eyes looked glassy. He looked ill. Steve wondered if that’s what he looked like himself when he was laid up with sickness.

‘I don’t wanna regret anything,’ Bucky whispered. For a moment they were both very still until Bucky finally spoke. ‘Is it selfish?’

‘Is what selfish?’ Steve sat on the edge of the bed.

‘That it made me think about my own life?’

Steve looked down at his shoes. ‘I think it’s normal,’ he said, then started to laugh.

‘Huh?’ Bucky sat up a little. ‘What?’

‘Khaki-wacky call girl,’ he chuckled. Bucky laughed a little, then went quiet.

‘Why did he carry on with her…she wasn’t right for him anyway. The other girl was much-’

‘They end up together in the end.’

‘Huh?’

‘I saw it in ’36, him and the nice one, they end up together in the end.’

‘Really?!’ Bucky seemed beside himself. 

‘Drink your tea ‘for it goes cold.’ 

He took a big gulp and lay back down. ‘Well I’m glad about that,’ he said. His eyes drifted somewhere else and he seemed to be in a contemplative mood, so Steve left him there and lay down in his own bed, glancing over every so often until Bucky had closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Sam Wilson's ancestors owned a cinema...in my humble opinion.


End file.
